


Drown

by turntechGodtier



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turntechGodtier/pseuds/turntechGodtier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Brainent on Tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drown

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Brainbent](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/5674) by Luka/Vast Derp. 



your name is dave strider

     and you

          give

     up

A hand takes yours, pulling you out of the room as your head spins. You're dizzy, you realise numbly. Dizzy and stumbling as you struggle to see more than a few inches in front of you, pitch blackness eating at the sides of your vision as you try and make your way toward the facility's car. It's Equius that has your hand in his, you realise, Terezi's gripping your other as you stare into space while she helps you into the back seat, even going so far as to buckle you in so you don't have the opportunity to strangle yourself with the seatbelt.

Dizzy and shaking and numb. He lost.

No.

You tell yourself it's not true, he didn't lose, they had a loaded case, that was all. You aren't fucking perfect, and no one expects you to be. Except when they do, it turns out. They wanted you two to be Fucking Perfect, and when you weren't, it all went to hell, and now that hell is threatening to engulf your entire being and you're not sure if you want to stop it. You gently pull your shades from your pocket and place them back on your face so you don't have to make eye contact. Terezi doesn't stop you, and in your dimmed vision and even dimmer thoughts, you're grateful.

The halls are empty when you return. But you keep hearing snatches of conversation, so maybe they're not empty, you're just not seeing the people that exist in the building. Your mind is so scattered right now that the very idea fails to seem as ludicrous as it should. They're there, ghosts of that morning before everything turned red and orange eyes staring at each other from across the room, desperate to talk to each other but no, you're not allowed, because you hurt him, _you hurt him_ they said, and for a moment you want to stop and scream, to tear at your hair and fall to your knees while everyone watches the anguish you're suddenly in. You want them to fucking know what you're feeling, except very suddenly

     its nothing at all

The words ring hollow in your own ears, your lips and throat working without any prompting as you answer someone's question (Feferi? Rose? You can't see past the haze to really figure it out). Yes, you know you're shaking, and your face is paler than usual, but _its nothing at all dont worry about it_ you keep saying, monotone and unwilling to acknowledge the thing eating at your insides not yet because it means acknowledging what happened and _you just can't fucking deal with it_ goddammit.

She's got her arms around you.

Protocol be damned, you register her saying, only for the phrase to fly out of your thoughts a moment later. Nothing is important enough to retain right now, your heartbeat (or maybe it's hers, and yours has mercifully stopped, but then you'll never get to go home if that happens, better start it back up again) thumping loudly in your ears as you sit there, and your eyes burn for reasons other than sun exposure and fuck everything you can't get them to stop no matter how much you try and swallow around the lump in your throat.

You're probably bawling loudly. Your heart, your spirit understands what happened, even if your brain refuses to see it. You're probably sobbing hard enough to wake the dead, but you can't hear it past the rushing in your ears, the feeling of your blood slowly replacing itself with lead as you sit there, clutching onto the soft cotton of her gaudy pumpkin-orange shirt. Something is definitely happening to you as you sit there in silence that's only broken by you, and for an instant you wonder if this is all your fault, if it's you that broke what you once had, and your gut aches as every pent-up, fizzy-cola, copper-and-bile emotion you deny having spills out of your eyes all at once. You know that aside from your shaking sobs, you're all too still as she just holds you, letting you get it out of your system.

"Don't lose yourself too deep," she murmurs, the concern in her voice somehow beyond that of patient-psychiatrist, and had you been able to process what she was saying, you'd have understood that she's become your friend in all of this. Then again, if you were in a position to process what she was saying, you wouldn't be hearing it at all.

"Don't make me come back," is all you whisper, your voice broken around the words. You can't do this, you decide fuzzily. You can't fucking do this, and even as you clutch at her shirt, you feel yourself letting go, your eyes clenched shut against everything, the smear of colours and the rushing of wind or water or maybe words in your ears as you just... sink.

Your name is Dave Strider, and you're telling everyone that you

     give

          up

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a whole lot of experience when it comes to writing mental illness, especially not dissociation, but the whole purpose of this was to come across as chaotic, as Dave reeling from what happened. I know when huge things like this hit me, it's always enough to send me staggering backwards, like a kick to the gut, and I imagine it's no different for him, either.


End file.
